“You’re going to relegate my history to a month,?” Freeman asks Wallace in their discussion of black history month. After noting there is no “white history month,” he says, “I don’t want a black history month. Black history is American history.”

The notion of a special month for black history may be hurting rather than helping efforts for racial equality, believes Freeman. When Wallace wonders that without black history month, racism may be harder to stop and asks, “How are we going to get rid of racism?” Freeman retorts, “Stop talking about it!”

Freeman believes the labels “black” and “white” are an obstacle to beating racism. “I am going to stop calling you a white man and I’m going to ask you to stop calling me a black man,” he says. “I know you as Mike Wallace. You know me as Morgan Freeman. You wouldn’t say, ‘Well, I know this white guy named Mike Wallace.’ You know what I’m saying?” Freeman asks Wallace.

This got posted to one of the boards I frequent and currently there are four pages of praise and admiration. His brief comments have compelled people to nominate him for president and one poster even said “he is one of the few people that should live forever.”

My response:

Cosby taught us the answer to the age old question – how to get whitey to like and even praise the black man. Have the man denounce his own people. It’s easy as that. Most of you were indifferent to Morgan Freeman prior to his comments and now you want him to be the next President. This is awesome.

I actually like the things that Cosby and, now, Freeman are saying. I don’t really have an issue with it either way, I just think it’s amazing how quickly any black celebrity can be immediately deemed intelligent, “a great actor”, a wonderful person, etc just for a few comments. And it really only works with blacks too. If I said I thought Asians sucked, nobody would really care. Sure, some who agreed with me might cheer me on. Others would say I was being sill. But most would be indifferent. It really does say something about the state of affairs.